2013 Football Scheduling & State hosts Richmond on Sept 7th

It was announced today that NC State will play host to Richmond in Carter-Finley Stadium on September 7, 2013.

Although that is the first official confirmation of football dates for next season, it is not the extent of our knowledge of the 2013 football schedule. In addition to Richmond, State will also play host to Louisiana Tech, Central Michigan and East Carolina in the out of conference component of our 2013 schedule.

It is expected, although it has not been formally announced, that Dave Doeren’s debut as NC State’s Head Football Coach may take place on August 31st against Louisiana Tech, who just hired Skip Holtz as their new head coach.

Unless more changes are brought about by conference re-alignment, Doeren’s first season as head coach will see him host Clemson, Maryland, and North Carolina in Raleigh while traveling to Boston College, Florida State and Wake Forest. (Please, Dave, win AT Wake Forest and restore order to the world!) The site has not yet been designated for State’s match up against new Atlantic Division foe, Syracuse. State will also play a yet un-disclosed Coastal Division team to round out the eight game ACC schedule.

Coach Tom O’Brien was obviously the primary architect of the 2013 out of conference schedule and the stature of opponents underscores his philosophy as he was not known for wanting to ‘go large’ on the challenges. Just today Phil Steele ranked the difficulty of 2012 football schedules and NC State came in at #68 between Miami (OH) and Buffalo. You can click here to review the entire list that quantifies a point we made a lot this past season that UNC-CHeats schedule was about as weak as it could possibly have been. (Please note the list includes the entire schedule and is not exclusive to out of conference games.)

Coach Doeren won’t have to wait long to put his stamp on scheduling as State’s schedule opens up significantly after 2014 – the Wolfpack only has one scheduled non-conference game in 2015, 2016, and 2017.

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^ Pretty sure they voted to keep the ACC slate at 8 games in the future. Would almost have to be this way with Notre Dame’s wonky situation, or that would mean that the ACC would be controlling 10 of 12 games for 5 teams each year.

So, if either the TBA Coastal game or the Syracuse game is at home, this will give us 8 home games. I’m OK with that, even though it will kick up the price of the season ticket by $50. On the other hand, I say if we need to cut a non-conf game, we should make it ECU. Permanently.

That schedule is absolutely fine for a first year coach and a program in transition. And there will be excitement because of that and DY will not need to buy out any of those games to keep a full stadium.

Weren’t we scheduled to make the two-for-one return trip to South Alabama in 2013? Did we buy out of that?

Unless adding Pitt screws with it, we should also have Miami at home. So, if nothing changes:
Home should be Carolina, Clemson, Miami, Maryland; away will be Wake, BC, FSU, Pitt.

As for the crappy schedule, that’s the nature of modern college football, and it’s largely why attendance continues to decline.

The fact is, as long as you’re in the ACC (and not named FSU) it’s gonna be tough to schedule quality non-conference opponents. And it won’t get easier as the model proves itself working: most SEC, Big XII and B1G teams won’t trade home-and-home unless it’s a marquee match up (or a traditional rivalry). And the trend recently has been to only play marquee non-conference games at neutral sites.

Think I’m crazy? Go check it out for yourself. You won’t find five home-and-home ACC/non-conference series in the past five years, and you’ll find even fewer marquee SEC/Big XII/B1G teams who went on a true road game.

Every single BCS school plays a I-AA. And there’s a reason Central Michigan is on the schedule. MAC schools will usually take a one-game payout or a two-for-one. Teams like Louisiana Tech need the money. ECU uses the NCGA to appear relevant.

“Iâ€™m sure that Debbie buying out one of those games sounds like a great idea to you.

Iâ€™m just wondering exactly whom you think is available for us to schedule as a replacement at this late date?”

I’m aware its a challenge but I hardly think its impossible. Go find another school that is in the same predicament, assuming ticket sales would make up for the buyout revenue. IDK, get it done.

When I tell associates at work to do something, I expect them to figure it out I don’t give a shit how hard it is. She’s a smart gal. Our program is in a spiral and hiring DD isn’t going to sell out stadiums our fan and recruiting excitement is really putrid.

8/31 – La. Tech
9/7 – Richmond
9/14 – Cent. Michigan
TBA – ECU
Here are the dates as I have them. Got them from opponents websites. I agree its a very weak non conferece Shedule but it’s too late now to buy out games this year. However; DY does need to buy out of the game @So. Ala. coming up in 2015. We go to So. Fla. in a return game in 2014 as well. Go to ECU in 2016. That one needs to be bought out. We don’t need to go to Greenville for any reason in any sport. For LRM, UCLA is the only school that has never scheduled a FCS team. Every other BCS team does. How long until UCLA does the same? We are at LSU in 2017. Just some information I’ve collected.

I don’t see who some people think we are going to schedule differently. The same thing we think about the Richmonds and ECUs of the world is what LSU and Alabama think about us. And what difference does it make? Strength of schedule doesn’t mean anything at this point. That only matters for the top ten teams or so, and we are not one of those teams. Let’s see if we can win our division first, something that has nothing to do with our OOC schedule. Win the division for the first time, then maybe the conference, then maybe we can gripe about the schedule. Until then, bring on the cupcakes.

I don’t mind an occasional game with Richmond or maybe Central Michigan from the MAC (one, not THREE), but this 8-game home schedule doesn’t make up for its lack of any OOC BCS-level teams on it, home or away.

We should buy out South Alabama NOW. We never should’ve scheduled them in the first place. All this does is run up our season ticket price, plus sends us to Mobile to play a game that cannot help us in any conceivable way. We’d be better off playing App State in Boone.

I know that all teams play cupcakes, but why is it that we seem to play more of them than anyone else I know of? We had a chance to get Tennessee in here until big money turned it into a one-game neutral-field corporate event, and ended up costing us a home game. It also cost TOB his job.

With expansion, Wolfpack officials should push the league to give us 9 conference games instead of 8. I’m sure a large majority of paying fans would prefer this. Play only 3 OOC teams, and quit scheduling the likes of South Alabama, Liberty, Murray State, Gardner-Webb, Western Carolina and Wofford. We should play one or two BCS-level opponents but no more than one smaller school like Central Michigan each season. We’ve got THREE small schools next season, plus ECU.

I blame all of this on Jed, but now that we’re moving away from the peripheral damage he inflicted on us, I hope that DY and the new coach will bring in stiffer competition for a change. We’ll never build a top-level or even a second-tier level program until then.